Treatment of Mental Disturbances in Elderly Women

Abstract

Paranoid conditions and depressive states are often found among elderly people who have lost their love objects, and who are accordingly forced to live alone.

Mental hospitalization of senile or depressed women patients can frequently be avoided through treatment by a psychiatrist and intensive guidance by a social worker. In the four cases presented, hospitalization was not needed. We believe hospitalization would have been found necessary if social and psychiatric treatment had not been given on an outpatient basis.

Hospitalization is more likely to be needed by mentally disturbed elderly men. Men, unlike women, are not used to not working and to staying home alone, so these deprivations are more traumatic. They have a more limited adjustment capacity.

It was believed formerly that mental disturbances in the elderly are likely to be serious and long-term ones. Now we know that many of these mental illnesses are transitory and can be treated with favorable results.

We have found, as have other investigators, that outpatient psychiatric treatment in combination with guidance by caseworkers can restore an elderly woman's interest in living, by convincing her, through the transference relationships, that people do care for her. The patient interprets the time given her by the staff as indication of affection. Some of these patients, when given kindly, understanding professional guidance, stop withdrawing, and socialize more with others in their personal environments.

The onset of involution differs widely among people. The ages of the four elderly women patients who were either depressed or had early stages of senile psychosis were 74 (recurrent depression), 68, 53, and 70 (senile psychosis).

We think that more clinics and social agencies should make this combination of social and psychiatric treatment available to elderly people. This would not only avert the additional suffering that mental hospitalization entails for many patients but also would result in a considerable financial saving for the community.